Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
Collected here, the Massey Lectures from legendary novelist Margaret Atwood investigate the highly topical subject of debt. She doesn’t talk about high finance or managing money; instead, she goes far deeper to explore debt as an ancient and central motif in religion, literature, and the...
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Collected here, the Massey Lectures from legendary novelist Margaret Atwood investigate the highly topical subject of debt. She doesn’t talk about high finance or managing money; instead, she goes far deeper to explore debt as an ancient and central motif in religion, literature, and the structure of human societies. By looking at how debt has informed our thinking from preliterate times to the present day, from the stories we tell of revenge and sin to the way we order social relationships, Atwood argues that the idea of what we owe may well be built into the human imagination as one of its most dynamic metaphors. Her final lecture addresses the notion of a debt to nature and the need to find new ways of interacting with the natural world before it is too late.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780887848001 (0887848001)
ASIN: 887848001
Publish date: October 7th 2008
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
Pages no: 203
Edition language: English
The whole world is swimming in debt, and by that I don't just mean a lot of us are up to our eyeballs in overdue bills. I mean that the concept of debt - of being in hock, of owing something to someone, of carrying a balance that will soon come due - is a construct that permeates our social environm...